“How did you hook up with the Panthers anyway?”
Now that’s another story.
Black-yellow connections go back. Deeper than Mao. Some Asians got a little red book; others got Little Red Riding Hood. Now she’s been serving the people for some time.
“Hmmm.” Panther takes a Swiss knife and commences to extract some shavings.
How many Chinatown girlfriends got themselves Panther dates? Whole group of them: Leway Girls. Legitimate Way. Girls cross the bridge to Oakland, and the brothers reciprocate and go Leway. Hang out on Jackson under the shadow of the I-Hotel at their Chinatown pool hall, swapping looks over the soda fountain of long life and trying to beat the odds at pinball. It’s about broadening horizons, taking the Third World to heart. International understanding while they get some sweet satisfaction from those black boys in their black turtlenecks and black jackets. Got to push the fingers through those spongy naturals. Pull away the heavy leather with those Free Huey fist buttons and set aside the weapons. Sweet satisfaction from those radical sisters who set you straight about the Suzie Wong stereotype. Oh yeah, set you real straight. Are you ready to mess with such sweetness? Gingerly. Don’t you know? You dancing slow to “My Guy,” but turns out she’s packing.
Takes you to a basement trapdoor in the linoleum floor, leads to the Chinatown underground. You thought it was a myth, but Leway’s taken the myth down to a new level. Cold shock of turned earth and rat piss and something acrid, like it’s smoldering. It’s deep enough you can stand upright. She pulls the string on a measly lightbulb. You in a long tunnel grave that stretches into a shooting range. You see the shovels discarded on one end. Beer bottles and cigarette butts, discarded bits of joints, moldy cartons emptied of their chop suey contents, chopsticks and shit. Who’d come down here to eat? Then you see the arsenal that’s lined up against the wall. Pistols and rifles of every carbine and caliber. Bolt-action, high-power, semiautomatic, automatic, ultra-automatic, rapid-fire, military.
She picks up a shotgun, cocks the goddamn thing, points down the long corridor, and bam! You look down to the dim end and see Emory’s cartoon rendition of a pig blown up to full size, now full of holes. Pick up your own choice of weapon and swap shots with woman warrior. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Upstairs the pinballs and pool balls clacking, but floor’s so thick, nobody can hear your action below. You raise some smoke and as it settles, she pushes you up to the wall, hikes up her skirt, and you jimmy into her. She rides. Oh, oh. Bam! Bam! You say, baby one more time, and she says, no no, got to pick my kid up from the sitter’s. Your hand passes her breasts, and you lick sweet fingers that come away wet. Mama’s milk. Gun-toting mama with a babe at her breast.
Woman warrior comes to West Oakland and takes up residence some evenings on Shattuck and Alcatraz with the Panther collective. Nights she’s there, she’s got to do security—night watch—like everyone else. Put her on the schedule from midnight to four a.m., when nothing’s happening. You catch some winks and leave her at the door toting her rifle and doing the rounds every half hour. You sleep pretty because you know this sister’s reliable.
Then, it’s the day before Thanksgiving in 1968. Pine Street house is a holdout. Entire San Francisco Police Department plus California Highway Patrol stationed outside. Word is, the minister of information is holed up inside. He’s not returning to San Quentin. It’s not an option. Woman warrior’s next to the sisters in the second tier of defense. It’s a twenty-four-hour vigil. Guns pointed out at the guns pointed in.
Is America going to have a Class War or a Race War? The fascists have already declared war upon the people. Will the people as a whole rise up to meet this challenge with a righteous People’s War against those fascist pigs, or will Black people have to go it alone, thus transforming a dream of interracial solidarity into the nightmare of a Race War?
—Eldridge Cleaver
International Section, B.P.P.
Algiers, Algeria
March 2, 1970
4: I Am a Crusader
Stop! in the name of love
Before you break my heart
Think it over
Think it over
—Diana Ross
That’s the night the Panther makes his escape. He does not stop in the name of love. He does not have to think it over. He is never there on Pine Street. Never does his scheduled talk at UC Berkeley. Long gone. Standoff was a sitting decoy. When word comes down he’s across the border, West Oakland breathes a long sigh. How did RG know for sure the yellow sister was there risking her neck? Who can be sure? Think it over. Down the line, who will be left to tell the story?
Panther’s stuffing a pipe with a sweet concoction. Gives it a light. Ooowee! That’s potent product. Put it out before the KGB gets here! RG jumps up, fans the air. Too bad they’re not Cuban cigars. Castro’s finest might be justifiable. Speaking of which . . .
Everyone was reading Robert F. Williams’s Negroes with Guns. He’s the man. He’s in Cuba transmitting Radio Free Dixie. Akagi finds a postal system to his box in Havana. It’s complicated, but he gets the word to Brother Robert: Salutations! The Black Panthers for Self-Defense are opening for business. Then one day, Akagi gets a package by way of Peking: 1 Tai Chi Chang, Peking, China. Got a stamp of a Vietnamese shooting down a U.S. warplane. It’s The Crusader, Williams’s newsletter. Do you know how many copies you can smuggle if they’re printed on rice paper? Slip a hundred of those papers under your jacket and distribute them on the Third World picket line at UC Berkeley. Check it out. Brother Robert’s in China, sitting at the left hand of Mao.
Fifty percent Malcolm. Fifty percent Williams. Mix and stir into a magic brew. Poof. You got a Black Panther. Huey’s got the plan and the ten points, but who knows about guns? Bobby and Akagi. They turn the thing into a military operation. It’s better than religion. Akagi can identify any weapon through his binoculars, take apart an M-1 blindfolded. He’s got a Chinatown supplier with a good price. It’s like shopping in another country—access to every kind of gun, shape, and caliber. Pretty soon he’s Field Marshal. You gotta train with Akagi, or you don’t get your weapon. Think it over. Trains the brothers who die.
Panthers walk on Sacramento; it’s national news on prime time, and overnight there’s forty-three Black Panther Party chapters nationwide. Telegrams come in daily; this one’s from this place called Reed College, wants to form a chapter.
Huey asks, “Akagi, you’re a college man. What’s this Reed College?”
Akagi thinks about it. “College for geniuses, but the crazy John Reed kind.”
“Check it out.”
Reed is honky territory out in Portland, Oregon. Shit. Could be a bunch of black brothers infiltrated behind the lines. How’d they get into Reed? They’re letting colored people into fancy places everywhere. Affirmative action my ass! Could be a hoax. A trap! Akagi gets three of his best men. Drive up to Oregon and do calisthenics and shoot up the desert on the way. Take a pilgrimage detour to Tule Lake and shoot at the leftover guard towers. Get to Reed in prime condition—trained and mean and looking sharp. Field jackets, black berets, shades, rifles. March into the designated coffee shop for the meeting. At attention.
Who walks in? It’s one black dude. Just one.
“Where’re the others?”
“It’s just me.”
“Just you?”
“Just me.”
It’s a chapter of one! A fucking chapter of one! Break my heart!
Akagi could lose it, but stop! He tugs nervously at his leather gloves, then faces Reed off and says, “Name the ten-point program!”
I call upon the workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, enlightened elements of the bourgeoisie and other enlightened personages of all colours in the world, white, black, yellow, brown, and so forth, to unite against the racial discrimination practiced by U.S. imperialism and to support the American Negroes in their struggle against racial discrimination.
—Mao Tse-tung
August 8, 1963
5: I Am a Martial Artist
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
—Aretha Franklin
“So, what you’re saying is we shoulda sent a telegram saying we set up a chapter in Chinatown.”
“Right on. Coulda sent a field marshal and three guards around to test your knowledge. Saved everybody some time.”
Instead, Legitimate Way girls take up with some Panther brothers, slip into the Great Star Theater across the street on Jackson, and do some serious necking and feeling during the kung fu features. Wap. Eeow. Aiiieeeee! Now, between the kissing sweeter than honey, it must have occurred to the brothers that the Legitimate guys, not to mention the girls, might be hiding some serious talents. Whip out fists of fire, deadly kicking. Rip off the shirts and start swinging nunchukus and spitting poison darts and daggers. Shit. Whose sister are you, anyway? You get those dirty looks from the villagers on the street. Leways are bold, showing their rebel colors, doing it to piss off their families, shock the old guys from the Six Companies. Same sisters with crushes on the cable car drivers, riding the cars to draw attention from those big black men in uniform.
Turns out Legitimate Ways is made of mostly the Chinatown-born kids who are getting their butts kicked by the foreign-born. Call them FOBS, Fresh Off the Boat, but they call themselves the Wah Ching. Gangster kids hanging out doing the dirty shit for the tongs, petty extortion, illegal fireworks, gambling, drugs. Wah Ching working their territory, doing their hustle, training with their sifu. Independent of their origins, both Leways and Wah Ching in and out of juvie and the Log Cabin. Some Wah Ching move over to Legitimate, push cues at the pool hall. Pool hall is a legitimate business. Give the gangsters jobs to keep them outta trouble. War on Poverty money forked over to lease the place. But twice a day, police raid the hall, take down names and descriptions. Stop the brothers with their fucking warrants for someone on the street between the movie house and the pool hall. Is it you? You all look the same, anyway. Depending, “protect and serve” can mean to trip, kick, box, and club. Part of their gangster control program, they say. It’s pure harassment. Liberal capitalist venture is screwed from the start.
White Russian kid from the Potrero hangs out with Leways like he’s Chinese. Maybe he is. Speaks more Chinese than the ABCs. Friend of RG from his hippy days. Crosses the Broadway/Columbus border daily. Supplies the brothers with sources for quality drugs. Parks his hopped-up ’Cuda on the street and works in the stolen parts. Mechanical genius. Political genius, too. He’s saying, take note, police brutality is under control in Oakland. Got to follow the path of the Panthers. Got to get the police off their backs. Running out of fooling. It’s not about give the lumpen jobs. It’s about organize the lumpen. RG and the Russian put together a plan. Notice when the black brothers come around, the Wah Ching stay at bay. That’s what we gotta do; we gotta join up. It’s a war, anyway. Got to get some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Not enough to be Wuxia heroes. One-armed swordsmen. One-armed boxers. Fighting at a disadvantage. And it’s just a lost arm! Check out a history of disadvantages. How many Wuxia heroes promise themselves to a life of nonviolence and have to give it up? It’s an impossible dream. Brutality on the street. The only thing the brothers know is how to fight their way through. The Wuxia got one thing. Got a philosophy about fighting. That’s what the Panthers offer. Study up. Revolution’s coming. Pick up the gun.
Panther’s getting antsy. What he wants. What he needs. Needs what’s in that pipe. Goes to the door and peeks down the hall. Nobody there at this hour. It’s dead.
RG looks skeptical. Aren’t they used to surveillance? Aren’t these the Stalinists who invented it?
Panther’s got an idea. He’s got a bottle of perfume for his honey, bought in Paris. “Smell this stuff.”
Oof.
That’s why women use just a little bit on the wrist. Molecules move through the air and whip it to you. Yeah, it was expensive; bought it to impress the French lady at the glass counter. Revolutionaries have style, why not? O.K., let’s sacrifice this boujwah shit. Buy the baby something else along the way. Give her her profits when he gets home. Empty out that silver caviar bowl and pour this potion out. Set it up near the door for full effect. “Gimme your lighter.” That’s the spark. Test the alcohol content like it was a Molotov cocktail. Hey, who was this cat, Molotov? We setting a new standard for his invention. Bringing it back home.
Silver bowl is burning like the eternal flame, set up next to the slit under the door. “O.K., hippie, we got some incense going.”
Panther and RG settle back in their chairs, ready to puff up some full flavors.
Meanwhile, the eternal flame is growing. Some of that sweet honey spilled over onto the carpet. Burning up the carpet. Spreading to the door. Flames rising up like it’s a tinderbox, and they ain’t even holding out against hostile forces. RG sees it from his direction. Spits out his smoke. “Oh, fuck! We got a situation!”
The Lumpen has no choice but to manifest its rebellion in the Universities of the Streets.
—Eldridge Cleaver
The Black Panther
June 27, 1970
6: I Am the Third World
I left a good job in the city
Working for the man every night and day
…
Big wheel keep on turning
Proud Mary keep on burning
—Tina Turner
But let’s leave those brothers in their smoking Moscow hotel room and check out what’s happening back in the States.
Listen to the story. It’s rolling.
Like I say, Akagi stays behind to take care of business. After three years Huey gets free, but there’re dead brothers all across the country. Police raids and shootouts in Oakland, Chicago, L.A., and the Marin County Courthouse. Repression, provocation, conspiracy, purges. Head of the Panthers incarcerated, but the body struggles. By the time it’s over, there’re thirty-four killed and hundreds imprisoned.
Rally round Bryant and Seventh, Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Jail. Everybody represents: Panthers, La Raza, Venceremos, Los Siete, Soledad, Patriot Party, National Committee to Combat Fascism, plus the significant attorneys for the defendants. But back up: Asian American Community is also represented. Hey, where’s the fancy name? Mothers for Mao, Uncle Ho’s Nephews, Godzillas, or East is Red? Where’s the Red Guard Party? RG missing an historic event. Who comes forward? It’s Akagi, surrounded by his guards. Underneath he’s a Panther, but if necessary, he’s the Asian American Community.
He gets introduced, and the crowd claps. Can he get a rise outta this crowd?
He comes on easy. “Good afternoon, brothers and sisters.” Makes adjustments to the microphone.
He looks around at his four guards, nodding at these Asian brothers dressed in fatigues, headbands, sporting shades so you can’t tell what’s in their sight, folded arms across their chests, ready for any eventuality. No doubt, they’re packing. It’s a show of force, but he says, reassuring-like, “Ah, don’t let the other brothers on the stand put you on any trip. Usually people think that when other brothers come up on the stand, these brothers are here to protect me. Well this is all false, because every brother up here, just like every one of you out there, is so important for our struggle.” Some kind of apology because these cats with their fu manchus look mean.
Then he goes into his talk, starting nice and easy. Talks about the Los Siete cats who are in prison awaiting trial for the shooting of a policeman. Talks about the Soledad Brothers on trial for the same shit. Talks about Panthers in the same situation.
Then he says, “See, understand that the Los Siete trial and what’s happening to the Soledad Brothers are not isolated incidents. They’re just like the practicing of a theory. And dig, this theory is a theory of genocide by the United States government and all their lackeys domestically and internationally. Understand that this theory is not an academic one, dig. It’s not even really very heavy, but if I was to artic
ulate this theory it would go like this: The only good one is a dead one.”
Lots of grunts of approval on this statement.
He goes on, “We have to understand that this theory is no new thing, see. I think it was this one cat name General Custer, in one of his more sensitive moments, said this in reference to the Native Americans.” This is where we get our history lesson. “Now, Goldilocks may have coined this phrase, but see, it was practiced long before he was on the scene. It was like when the first invaders from Europe came and, in quotes, ‘discovered’ America. Understand, when they first discovered America, they immediately started practicing this theory. Initially it was focused against the Native Americans, then finally against the Mexican people on the West Coast, and they disguised this theory of genocide as ‘manifest destiny,’ dig. And toward the black people in the United States, they disguised it as a racist stereotype portraying the black man and the black sister as subhuman persons, and this was the rationale for slavery and their subhuman treatment. Once again, an example of the theory of genocide of the United States.”
But he don’t stop there with his theorizing. He keeps going, and this next part brings the Asians into the general picture. He’s got to do that, so he continues, “Now toward the Chinese people, see, this theory was disguised another way. It was called ‘Yellow Peril,’ and that was the rationale for exclusion acts. That was the rationale for forcing Chinese people to group together into Chinatowns, and the reason they did that was for self-defense, if you can dig that. And understand, against the Japanese people in more contemporary history, they had the same theory of genocide, and the game they ran on the Japanese people, when they put over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans into camps, was that they put them in camps ‘for their own protection,’ if you can relate to that.” This is where he gets some heavy applause and shouts of encouragement from the crowd.
He pauses, then says, “Now see, understand, what we have to realize is that this same theory is being practiced today. Man, the same theory is happening in Chicago, San Francisco, Kent State, Jackson State, and definitely internationally in terms of the Indochina War and the genocide over there. And understand that the sheep’s clothing for this theory now is the disguise of ‘law and order.’”
1970 Page 2